Ali

Also Known As: Georgian ალი; plural alis; a female ali is an alkali, ალქალი; recorded among the Georgians as the local form of the Āl known across Iran, Armenia and the Caucasus
Region/Culture: Central and Eastern Europe
Mythos: Georgian Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Demons and Devils
Mythical Attributes: Alis take the shape of a relative, a friend or a golden-haired woman in white to draw a victim close, and are counted among the water beings.
Role in Mythos: The ali is the malevolent spirit of the Georgian wild places, the danger that waits for mothers in childbirth, newborns and anyone travelling alone.
Relation to Humans: Alis harm women in labour, infants and lone travellers, slip into stables and lead people into water disguised as someone they trust. Their spells yield to a spoken charm against the ali or to the name of Saint George, and an ali whose hair and nails have been cut becomes the loyal servant of whoever cut them.

A man is mowing a meadow in Samegrelo, and every time the blade of his scythe hisses through the grass, someone at the edge of the field makes the same stroke. She is a woman, unkempt, hair wild, and she copies him exactly. When he pauses, she pauses. When he swings, she swings. He does not stop to wonder who she is. He already knows.

She is an ali, or strictly an alkali, the female of a kind of spirit that Georgians placed in the forests, among the rocks and in the ruins of abandoned buildings. The word covers both sexes. The males are the stronger, and the frightening ones; the females carry the same appetites with less strength in the arm, and make up for it with a better disguise. The Moscow encyclopedia Myths of the Peoples of the World, whose Georgian entry on the ali is signed with the initials L. Ch., lists their victims plainly: women in childbirth, newborn infants, solitary travellers, and anyone else unlucky enough to be in the wrong place.

What an ali looks like depends on whether it wants to be seen. Left to itself it is ugly in a very particular way. Its teeth are copper. Its hair is dirty and matted. Where it walks it leaves a footprint that looks like glass, which is the kind of detail that makes a story stick. When it hunts, it borrows a face. The same encyclopedia says an ali lures its victim into water by appearing as a close relative, and Heinz Fähnrich’s Lexikon georgische Mythologie (1999), as cited in a 2023 study by Asmik Galstyan and Ayk Akopyan, adds that it can take the form of an acquaintance or a friend in order to deceive and do harm. The female alkali has one more mask. She sometimes steps into the role of Dali, the golden-haired goddess of the hunt and the mountain animals, and appears as Dali does, a beautiful woman with golden hair in a white dress.

The water matters. The National Parliamentary Library of Georgia’s dictionary defines the ali in a single line as a water being of Georgian mythology, and Fähnrich compares its functions to those of the Armenian water spirits. Put that beside the stables, the ruins and the woods, and the ali’s territory becomes clear. It is everywhere a person might be alone.

It also belongs to a much larger family. The Encyclopaedia Iranica article on the Āl, by James R. Russell and Ahmad Shamlu (1984), traces a demon of the same name and function from Iran across Armenia and Central Asia and records that among the Georgians of the Caucasus it is called al-i. Across that range the Āl is the enemy of the new mother, the thing that comes at midnight when she has been left alone, and it is kept off with iron. Galstyan and Akopyan’s comparative study of the demon across the Caucasus sets out three theories of where it came from, Iranian, Turkic and Mesopotamian, and argues that it reached the North Caucasus through Armenian and Georgian intermediaries. The Georgian ali is that demon naturalised, given local habits, a local taboo and a local saint to fear.

The saint is George. His was the name to say when an ali’s spell took hold, and there was also a set form of words, a charm against the ali, recited for the same purpose. Neither was a weapon. Both were a way of reminding the spirit that the house was protected.

The other defence was less pious and far more useful. An ali whose hair and nails are cut off becomes the faithful servant of the person holding the clippings. That is the rule the mower in the meadow was counting on. In a telling from Samegrelo retold by the Georgian writer Tamaz Chikvanaia in 2022, the mower, a man named Gabriel, set a trap with a rope that turned her habit of copying him against her, and when she had matched him move for move he had her. He cut the hair from the right side of her head and the nails from her left hand, hid them in a vessel at the hearth, and took her home. There was a small wedding. For a year the ali kept his house and was a good wife.

Then a child, angry about something, told her where the hair and nails were hidden. That was the end of the marriage. She took them back and went into the forest, and Gabriel spent a long time looking for her and never found her. Everything the ali had given him lasted exactly as long as the secret did.

The powers of an ali follow from what it is, a spirit of lonely places that lives on the unguarded moment. It can wear the face of a mother, a cousin or a friend, and it can wear a goddess’s golden hair. It can get into a stable at night. It can walk a traveller to the water’s edge and further. Its chosen victims, the woman in labour and the newborn, are the people least able to run.

Its weaknesses are just as specific. It flinches from Saint George and from the proper words. The female is weaker than the male. Above all, an ali is bound by its own body: a pair of scissors taken to its hair and nails makes it a servant, and it will stay one only as long as the clippings stay hidden. It is a demon with a household chore list and a very good memory.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an ali in Georgian mythology?

An ali is a malevolent spirit of Georgian folklore that lives in forests, among rocks and in ruins. Alis can be male or female, the female being called an alkali. They harm women in childbirth, newborns and people travelling alone.

What does an ali look like?

In its own form an ali has copper teeth, dirty matted hair and a footprint that looks like glass. It usually disguises itself as a close relative or a friend, and the female alkali can appear as a beautiful golden-haired woman in a white dress, the same form as the goddess Dali.

How is an ali warded off?

Georgian tradition counters an ali with a spoken charm against the ali or by calling on the name of Saint George. An ali whose hair and nails are cut off becomes the loyal servant of the person who cut them, for as long as the clippings stay hidden from it.

Is the Georgian ali the same as the Al of Iran and Armenia?

The ali is the Georgian form of the Āl, a demon of the same name that attacks new mothers and infants across Iran, Armenia, the Caucasus and Central Asia. The Encyclopaedia Iranica records that among the Georgians it is called al-i. The Georgian ali has its own local features, including its haunts in ruins and stables and the rule that cutting its hair and nails enslaves it.

What is the story of Gabriel and the ali?

In a tale from Samegrelo, a mower named Gabriel noticed a wild-haired woman copying his scything and recognised her as an ali. He trapped her with a rope, cut the hair from the right side of her head and the nails from her left hand, hid them at the hearth and married her. After a year a child told her where the clippings were hidden, and she took them back and vanished into the forest.